“Anyway, she left and closed the door. And there was His Grace, a’sitting on the sofa, looking at me. You know how he does. Steady like, as though he knows everything about you, every secret you ever had, and ones you didn’t even know about.”
Eleanor did know. The penetrating golden stare, the stillness, Hart’s conviction that he commanded everyone in his sight. “Indeed.”
“So, there I was. Well, Joanna, you’re in for it now, I was thinking. I’d be a ruined girl and never get a good place again. I’d be a whore the rest of me life, and that would be the end of it.
“His Grace just looks at me, and then he asks my name. I told him—weren’t no use in lying. Then he asks where I came from, and was this my first place, and what possessed me take a job with Mrs. Palmer? I told him I hadn’t known about Ma Palmer until I was already in the house. He looked angry, very angry, but I somehow knew he weren’t angry at me. His Grace told me to stay where I was, and he goes to the desk and pulls out some paper. He sits down and starts writing something, me standing there with my hands empty, having no idea what to do.
“He finishes up and comes back to me, handing me the folded letter. You take this to a lady I know in South Audley Street, he says. I’ve written the directions on the front. You walk out of this house and find a hansom and tell him to take you there. Tell the housekeeper in South Audley Street to give the letter to the lady of the house, and do not let her turn you away. Then he hands me shillings. I didn’t want to take them, but he said they were for the hansom. He told me not even to go back upstairs and get my things—such as they were.
“I was a little worried about where such a man as him would send me, but he gives me a stern look and says, She’s a lady, is Mrs. McGuire, a true lady with a tender heart. She’ll look after you.
“I started to cry and say thank you, and that he was being so kind. He put his finger to his lips and smiled at me. You’ve seen His Grace smile. It’s like sunshine after a wet day. And he says—I’ll never forget his exact words—Don’t ever say to anyone that I am kind. It will ruin my reputation. Only I will know, and you. It will be our secret. Then he winked, like he did when he came in tonight.
“I weren’t sure, even then, because I’d never heard of this Mrs. McGuire. It might be all a strange game he was playing with me. But I did what he said. He even walked me out into the hall and down to the front door. I should have gone out the back, being a servant, but he said he didn’t want me walking through the kitchens.
“Mrs. Palmer comes out while he’s taking me down the stairs. He gives me a little shove toward the front door, and then he turned on her. Right enraged he was. He shouted something terrible, asking Ma Palmer what was the matter with her, and Why would you think me depraved enough to want to deflower an innocent? Mrs. Palmer was crying and shouting back at him, and telling him she didn’t know I was an innocent, which was a lie, because she’d asked me. I ran right out of that house and let the door bang behind me, so I didn’t hear any more.
“Now, I could have taken the shillings and gone anywhere I wanted to, but I decided to take the hansom to South Audley Street and give the letter to Mrs. McGuire on the off chance.” Joanna spread her hands. “And here I am.”The story sounded like Hart—he had an amazing sensibility about what people were like and who needed a hand up and who needed to be kept in check. That was how he’d risen so far, she thought, from a lad beaten by his father to a man knowing who to be gentle with and when.
“I still haven’t told you all of it,” Joanna said. “The next time I saw His Grace, he was paying a call on Mrs. McGuire, who is a good lady, just as he told me. When I took his coat, I made to say something to him, but he puts his finger to his lips again and tips me a wink. I winked back at him, and he went away. It’s become our signal, like, for me saying thank you, and for him keeping his good deeds secret. No one’s ever caught the signal, except you, tonight. Stands to reason you would, since you’re his wife. I wanted to tell you all about it, in case you misunderstood. And I’m married meself now,” Joanna finished proudly. “I have a son, five years old and he’s such trouble.”
Eleanor sat still after Joanna finished, thinking the story through. “You haven’t explained about the photographs. How did you get them? Did Hart himself give them to you?”
“His Grace? No. He knows nothing about them. They came my way about four months ago, around Christmas.”
“Came your way how?”
“In the post. A little packet of them, and I must tell you, I blushed when I opened them. It came with a note that told me to send them on to you.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “A note from whom?”
“Didn’t say. But I was told to send them to you one or two at a time, starting in February. I knew who you were, everyone does, and I thought it couldn’t do no harm. His Grace always looks sad, and it tickled me to think you’d maybe go and see him, and show him the piccies and make him smile. And you see? You married him.”
“But what about the others?” Eleanor said, her curiosity not abated. “Why were they sold to a shop in the Strand?”
Joanna blinked. “Others? I don’t know about any others. I was sent the eight, which I started sending on to you.”
“I see.” Eleanor thought about the sequence of events. Hart had proclaimed his intention of taking a wife to his family at Ascot last year in June. Joanna was sent the photographs at Christmastime, told to start sending them to Eleanor in February. Eleanor rushes to London to see Hart, Hart begins his game of seduction, and Eleanor now was his wife.